Antlers Hotel

1902

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 29, 2021

1. Antlers Hotel Marker

Click or scan to see
this page online

From the National Register Nomination:
The Antlers Hotel was constructed as an important social and tourism center at the turn of the 20th century. The site of the Antlers Hotel on the corner of Hill Avenue and Lake Street was a very important location for commercial and retail business in Spirit Lake at the turn of the century. The building's grand entrance faces Hill Avenue and was incorporated into the fifty-two foot wide veranda. The original veranda wrapped around 1/3 of the building's first two stories and was made of wood posts atop stone pillars. The veranda was intended to shade veranda diners on the upper level and shade shoppers on the lower level.
The first guest to register in the new hotel was Iowa's newly elected Governor, Albert Baird Cummins (Governor from 1902-1908). He was followed by thirty-four prominent businessmen who formed a dinner party given in honor of the Governor. All in attendance of the opening of the Antlers Hotel determined it was by

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 29, 2021

2. Antlers Hotel Marker

The marker is mounted on the right side of the west-side 2nd floor lobby entrance.

far the finest facility in northwest Iowa and predicted the hotel's long and continued success.
Throughout the past century, the Antlers Hotel has on many occasions served as an important community center. At 5:00 am on November 11, 1918, word of the end of World War I came to the Antlers Hotel in Spirit Lake via telegraph. The news of the end of the war spread quickly and a celebratory bonfire was immediately started on the corner in front of the Antlers Hotel. The fire burned all day and was fed by boxes, old wood and several outhouses from the alleys of downtown Spirit Lake.

From the 1880s to the early 1920s an alliance of railroad companies, entrepreneurs, and sportsmen made Spirit Lake and the Iowa Great Lakes region into an upscale tourist destination based on boating, hunting and gun tournaments. Completed in 1902, this hotel was built at the height of that development. This is one of the few railroad-era tourism related buildings remaining in the area. It was designed by Austin, Minnesota architect Frank W. Kinney. The three-story brick structure is built on a raised basement. It features brick columns, arched windows, ornamental cornices and a wrap-around veranda. It has been renovated into a 14-unit apartment

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 29, 2021

3. Antlers Hotel (west elevation)

complex.

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 29, 2021

4. Antlers Hotel (northwest corner detail)

From the National Register Nomination:  Masonry on the exterior of the building is natural colored Wisconsin sand-molded brick.

Photographed By Cosmos Mariner, June 29, 2021

5. Antlers Hotel (northwest elevation)

From the National Register Nomination:  The north and west facades of the Antlers Hotel were constructed with uniformly ornate and impressive design features. Brick quoins were fashioned on the building's northeast, northwest and southwest corners. The wrap-around design of the building unifies the north and west facades as the "front" of the building. Similarly, the building's broad veranda wraps around the corner to emphasize the importance of both the north and west facades.